Gloucester will find out who they will face in the pool stages on their return to the Heineken Champions Cup on Wednesday, June 20.

It has been confirmed that the Cherry and Whites will be a tier four club in the draw, which takes place at the iconic Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, after they claimed the final qualifying spot by reaching the European Challenge Cup final.

It means Gloucester are likely to face a tough task to progress to the quarter-finals with teams ranked based on their league positions in their respective leagues.

A number of different scenarios are possible but they will definitely avoid arch-rivals Bath, Challenge Cup winners Cardiff Blues, RC Toulon and Ulster, who are the other teams in tier four.

Gloucester are also guaranteed to face another Premiership club in their pool - either Saracens, Exeter, Wasps, Newcastle or Leicester.

A preliminary draw will be conducted to establish the remainingTier 1 clubs, which will be two of the three second-ranked clubs – Exeter Chiefs, Scarlets and Montpellier – before the main draw.

The Champions Cup trophy

The key principles of the draw:

The 20 clubs which have qualified on merit from the TOP 14, Gallagher Premiership Rugby and the Guinness PRO14 will compete in the 2018/19 Champions Cup in five pools of four.

The clubs are divided into four tiers based on their status as championship winners and/or on their qualification positions in their league tables. This will be done by a draw in advance of the main pool draw. The Champions Cup winners go automatically into Tier 1.

Each pool will have at least one club from each of the three leagues.

Each of the five pools will have one club from each of the four tiers.

There will be no more than two clubs from the same league in a pool.

No pool will contain two PRO14 clubs from the same country.

Clubs from the same league will be kept apart until the allocation of the Tier 4 clubs.

There are seven Premiership, seven Pro14 and six Top 14 teams in next season’s Champions Cup.

Once Tier 1 is confirmed, Tiers 2 and 3 fall into place as per the key principles above.

Once the tiers have been established, the draw will get underway with tier one clubs drawn into the pools first, followed by tiers two, three and four in keeping with the key principles.

Best case scenario

Tom Marshal scores for Gloucester against Newcastle

Of course there is no such thing as an easy draw in the Champions Cup, particularly when Gloucester haven’t played in the competition for five years, but this looks like the most favourable possible outcome:

Castres – They pulled off a huge shock by winning the French Top 14 title after finishing sixth in the regular season, beating Toulon and Racing 92 away in the play-offs before stunning table-topping Montpellier in the final. That shows how dangerous Castres are but they would not be as feared as the other potential top tier opponents.

Newcastle – The Falcons are playing in the Champions Cup for the first time in 14 years after their shock play-off finish in the Premiership. They are likely to be a force under Dean Richards again but are beatable as Gloucester showed with their win at Kingston Park in the Premiership and at Kingsholm in the European Challenge Cup semi-final last season.

Edinburgh – An improving outfit under Richard Cockerill who finished third in their Guinness Pro14 conference last season and narrowly missed a play-off spot. They would be no pushovers but look to be the easier option of Gloucester’s possible Pro14 opponents.

Worst case scenario

Chris Wyles of Saracens dives in for a try against Gloucester

If it all goes wrong, Gloucester could be placed in with three European superpowers.

Saracens – The English champions who enjoyed back-to-back Champions Cup success before they were beaten by eventual winners Leinster in last season’s quarter-finals. They dished out a record 62-12 defeat to Gloucester at the end of the Premiership season are currently 4-1 second favourites to reclaim their European crown.

Racing 92 – Last year’s finalists who were narrowly beaten 15-12 by Leinster, Racing will be one of the sides once again expected to be in the mix. They boast world class talent and although Dan Carter is leaving, they are blessed with world class talent throughout and are bringing in the likes of Finn Russell and Simon Zebo.

Munster – Every team will be hoping to avoid a nightmare scenario where Munster go into the third tier, which would happen if Scarlets are drawn as one of the top tier sides. The Irish giants are regular participants in the latter stages of the competition and boast a squad packed full of talent, including several of Ireland’s Grand Slam winners. A group of death can't include both competition favourites Leinster and Munster but the prospect of the latter being a third tier side makes this probably a tougher draw for Gloucester than if they were placed with the defending champions.